Author's note: The events in this chapter do not necessarily take place over fifteen consecutive days. Also, the military offensive(s) in this chapter do not correspond to offensives which happened in the real Italian Campaign—it took much longer for Allied troops to reach northern and central Italy than implied here, and some of the locations are of my own invention. But hey, it's fiction!
Additionally, I've had a roller coaster of a week. I lost my cat of 20 years, and gained a puppy of 9 weeks. Therefore, there will be a 2 week break from the story to allow me to recharge my emotional batteries (which are currently very depleted) and to catch up on the stories I follow and haven't had time to read/review yet. I do, however, leave you with this rather lengthy chapter. Parts of it are some of the saddest things I've ever written.
We Were Soldiers
53. Fifteen Days
One
Bucky held his breath as he stood at the edge of the camp's latrine pit and fixed his gaze on the nearby timberline. It wasn't too bad if the company was marching every day, because they got a fresh pit every night. When the company was camped for longer, however, the smell became more and more intolerable with every passing day. The warm, early-September weather certainly didn't help matters.
As soon as he'd finished, he zipped up his fly, exhaled, and turned swiftly away to take a deep breath of fresh air. He very nearly turned right into Private Biggs, who was hovering behind him, permeated with a melancholy air that had nothing to do with the foul latrine smell.
"Jeez, Biggs!" Bucky gasped, as his frightened heart settled down. "You shouldn't lurk behind people like that, especially not at the pits. You'll get a reputation."
"Sorry, Sarge. I just wanted to talk to you, and this was the first time I've seen you alone all day."
"If you wanted to talk in private, Private, all you had to do was ask."
"Yeah, I guess. I didn't wanna inconvenience you, though."
"It's no inconvenience at all," Bucky assured him. Biggs was one of the nicest guys in the whole regiment. He never complained, never caused a fuss, didn't waste time boasting and grandstanding, was always polite and respectful to everyone he met… he really was the embodiment of the phrase 'gentle giant,' and Bucky had all the time in the world for him. "Let's step away from the pits and you can tell me what's on your mind."
Biggs nodded, and Bucky led him away. As they walked, he assessed the big man from the corner of his eye. There was an unhappy slump to Biggs' shoulders, and a sadness in his eyes which exacerbated the melancholy air suffusing him. He was a good man and a good soldier; one who would probably never make sergeant. Though a good soldier, he preferred to follow than to lead, and until now he'd always seemed content with army life.
"What did you want to talk about?" Bucky asked, once they'd found a quiet spot with plenty of fresh air going for it.
Biggs shuffled his feet, toeing a stone before looking up to meet Bucky's eyes. "There's no easy way to say this, Sarge, so I'm just gonna come out and say it. I think you shouldn't send me on any more combat ops."
Bucky blinked. Of all the things Biggs could'a said, it was not what he'd been expecting.
"Why?"
"Well... " Biggs took a deep breath, steeling himself. "Y'see… I'm cursed, Sarge."
"Cursed?"
"Yes."
"Can you… um… elaborate?" Suddenly, Bucky felt like the chaplain being confronted with somebody's irrational and non-existent fear of vampires. In fact, maybe he ought to refer this one to Lt. Olliver. Surely the chaplain knew how to pretend to remove a curse to reassure the men, didn't he?
"I'm bad luck, Sarge," Biggs said. His wide eyes grew misty. "Every mission I go on, somebody dies. First mission, Danzig bought it. I was on the recon with Gusty and Tipper, and you know how that one turned out. Then there was Lieutenant Nestor; I may not have been in his jeep, but I was there. At first I thought maybe it was Gusty who was the cursed one. He was there for all of those too, and also when Stoller got shot. But Gusty wasn't with us when Pearson died. I'm the only common link between all of the dead men. You gotta pull me off combat ops, Sarge, before I get more men killed."
Bucky's heart went out to the guy. He really seemed to genuinely believe that he was to blame for the deaths. How long had he been wrestling with those thoughts? How long had he been blaming himself for something that was entirely out of his control? Clearly, he'd been considering it for some time, and it must be eating him up if he thought he had to be pulled off combat missions.
"Biggs," he said, clapping the big man on his shoulder, "I promise, none of those deaths were your fault. You're not cursed, and you're not a source of bad luck; you're just unlucky. Unlucky that you were on those missions when we lost men. That's all."
"I'm not so sure, Sarge."
"Well, I am. And I can prove it."
Hope flickered in the private's eyes. "How?"
"Next mission I go on, you're coming as well. It will go smoothly, and then you'll see once and for all that you're not cursed."
Biggs almost burst into tears, at that. "Please don't make me go, Sarge! I don't wanna get you killed, too."
"Do you trust me?"
"I guess." Bucky lifted one eyebrow at the hesitant tone. "I mean, yes, of course. You helped me out with my sleepwalking, and you rescued Wells and Carrot from falling off a cliff, and some other stuff too. I trust you a lot more than I trust myself."
"Then trust me now. You're coming with me on the mission, and you won't get me killed. Or anyone else, for that matter." Bucky mustered his best reassuring smile, then said something extremely stupid. "I promise."
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Two
Engines roared into the night like angry beasts voicing their displeasure. The roars were punctuated by the staccato of gunfire, of M1s and Colts, and the responding shots from German rifles and pistols. Crouched in the shadow of a Sherman tank, and with Biggs by his side, Bucky fired shot after shot from his M1, and reloaded his ammo clip the second it was spent with fluidity borne of experience. He lost only three seconds of firing time in the reload.
He didn't hear the hatch of the tank open, but he heard the gunner call down.
"Sergeant Barnes, we can't wait any longer! The rest of the team's out of sight, and we're a sitting duck!"
Bucky tore his eyes away from the forest and looked up to the tank. The gunner was a dark silhouette against the clear black sky, a vague form that blocked out the twinkling stars.
"We wait," he shouted up.
"But Sergeant—"
"If you move that tank before I give the order, I'm gonna come up there and turn it around," Bucky growled. Then he turned his focus back to the trees, where Nazis were doing their best to erase Sergeant James Barnes from the history books.
The sound of hurrying feet reached his ears between reloads. Down the rough chipped path which led to the German munitions factory, Wells and Hodge appeared at full pelt. The Krauts shot blindly at the sound of their footsteps, their bullets miraculously missing.
"Get that tank moving!" Wells yelled, while he and Hodge were still thirty metres out.
Bucky didn't need telling twice. He hopped up onto the right-side mudguard of the wide tracked wheels and banged his fist several times on the metal shell.
"Go!" he shouted through the vehicle's wall. "For Godssake, go!"
He couldn't hear the voices inside the tank, but he imagined they were swearing at him. The tank began moving, and Biggs sprang onto the left-side mudguard as the vehicle pulled away.
Hodge and Wells put on a burst of speed, and as they drew level with the tank, Bucky shouldered his rifle and leaned forward, reaching out with his hand. Wells grabbed it, and Bucky's shoulder complained as he hauled his friend up onto the mudguard. On the other side of the tank, Biggs was hauling Hodge up, too.
"How long left on the clock?" he asked. From the trees running beside the path, a German appeared, taking aim with his rifle at the men on the tank. Bucky pulled out his Colt and dropped the guy before he could get off his shot.
"About five sec—"
The night erupted in a spectacular display of pyrotechnics as the munitions factory was engulfed in a blazing fireball. Flames spilled out across the forest, leaping into the sky, spitting burning gunpowder into the air. Instinctively, Bucky used his free hand to grip a projecting part of the tank's exterior, and a second later a shockwave hit him hard, knocking the air from his lungs, popping his ears and sending him sliding into Wells, who was also scrabbling for a handhold.
The shockwave passed and he sat up a little straighter. A quick glance across to the other side of the tank showed him Hodge and Biggs still had their own seats.
"I SAID FIVE SECONDS," Wells shouted. At least, Bucky thought he was shouting. It came across as more of a whisper, muted by the muffled, garbled roar of the tank, as if he was hearing everything from under deep water. Wells stuck his pinky finger in his ear and wiggled it around a few times. "I THINK I'M DEAF."
"ME TOO!" Bucky said. He turned his head and said, "HEY, HODGE! BIGGS! CAN YOU HEAR ME?" There was no response, so he turned his attention back to Wells. By the light of the stars and the moon, he saw that his friend had a black, sooty smudge on his cheek, like a kid who'd stuck his head into the dirt-caked chimney of an old coal fire.
Wells gave him a glance that was full of suspicion. "WHAT ARE YOU GRINNING LIKE THAT FOR?"
Fighting a smirk, Bucky closed his eyes and leant back against the tank. "NO REASON."
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Three
"Will you teach me French?"
A week after the mission to San Vinadio, Bucky had finally remembered his promise to himself. He looked over to Wells, who was sprawled on his camp bed, his nose buried in a pocket-edition book. He'd finally found one in Gusty's ever-changing collection that he hadn't read before.
Wells didn't even bother glancing up. "No."
"Aw, c'mon."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it's a stupid language and you don't need to speak it."
"That's not true." Bucky plugged his ink bottle with its stopper and set aside a letter he'd written to home. A few minutes of air-drying, and he could slip it into its envelope without the ink smudging too much. "Back in San Vinadio, if I'd been able to speak French, we might've conversed quietly without giving ourselves away. It might come in useful, in future."
A loud snort escaped from Wells, and his eyes danced up to Bucky's face. "Doubtful. We're not in France anymore, so it's not like there's anyone you need to be conversant with. And if you want a language we can speak without giving ourselves away, you should pick something like a non-verbal language. We could invent our own sign-language. Let's start with this one." Wells held up one hand, first two fingers forming a V.
"Don't be like that," Bucky scolded.
With a sigh, Wells dog-eared his page and sat up cross-legged on his bed.
"Fine. But what's really sparked this sudden desire to become a Francophone?"
Bucky chewed on his lower lip for a moment as he tried to decide how much to admit. Finally, he decided on full disclosure.
"Back in San Vinadio, when things were going sideways, I didn't have a clue what was going on. I hated sitting there, not being able to do anything but wait. If I spoke French—or hell, even Italian—I might've had some inkling of what was happening. Maybe you could'a warned me you were reaching for your gun."
"I did."
"I mean, you could'a given me something more than a worried look. I don't like feeling helpless like that. Not knowing what's happening, or what I can do."
"Welcome to life, pal. That's just the way it is sometimes. You can't control everything."
"I can try," Bucky pouted. Maybe he was being slightly unrealistic, but what if the next time, his lack of knowledge got someone killed? They'd been lucky in San Vinadio; lucky that Bucky had read Wells' expression correctly, and that he'd seen his fellow sergeant reach for his gun. Next time, they might not have luck on their side.
"Sure you can," Wells agreed. "But what if next time it isn't me who's sat at that table with you? What if it's Gusty, or Hodge, or Franklin? They don't speak French. If that happens, you'll be me, and they'll be you, and you'll be back at square one."
"I could order them to learn French..?"
His suggestion was met with a stony stare, and Bucky finally sighed in defeat.
"Okay, you've made your point. I can't control everything, much as I might like to. But I still think knowing another language might come in handy."
"Can I make a suggestion?" Bucky nodded, and Wells continued. "All the major players in this war are either speaking English or speaking German. Regardless of which side comes out on top—and I sincerely believe it's gonna be us, and not those sausage-breath Krauts—nobody is gonna be speaking French. If you wanna to learn a language that's not gonna keep you in the dark, learn German, because you already know English."
"But I hate the way German sounds," he complained. "All harsh and angry, like it's being shouted rather than spoken."
"But it would be more useful." Wells returned to his book, leaving Bucky to his thoughts.
Maybe Wells was right. Maybe it would be better to learn a useful, angry language than a useless, pleasant one. If Bucky could speak German, Krauts would never be able to have conversations around him without him knowing what they were saying. But then, the only person Bucky knew who could speak German was Agent Carter, and he wasn't sure she'd make a good teacher. She didn't seem to like him very much.
On the other hand, it would be a good opportunity to spend more time with one of the few dames in camp, and maybe work on changing her mind about him. A chance to convince her he wasn't the bad guy she seemed to believe him.
"Will you teach me French?" he asked Wells.
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Four
Men began to crowd around the six deep holes in the ground. Beside the holes were six mounds of earth. Bucky was starting to lose count of how many mounds of earth he'd seen.
Never before had they lost so many men from one regiment on a single mission. A squad from the 69th Infantry had gone up against an entire company of Germans, but their victory had not come cheap. Their captain was lying unconscious in a hospital bed, severely wounded. They'd lost a sergeant, a corporal and four privates.
Bucky stopped in a line behind the 69th, squeezing himself in between Gusty and Hawkins. On the opposite side of the graves were the 370th Infantry and the support troops. The nurses were there, too, dabbing at their eyes with clean white handkerchiefs. Bucky didn't know how they did it. How they managed to get the tears to stop. Until now he'd kept his own tears back, because if they started flowing, he didn't think he'd ever be able to stop them. There was too much sadness. Too much loss. It was easier not to cry. Easier to pretend to be strong, even though each death shattered him a little more.
He didn't look around at the faces nearby. He didn't want to see reflections of his own stoic countenance. Didn't want to see sorrow and loss hidden behind eyes which tried to show nothing. And when Lieutenant Olliver appeared and began to lead the service, Bucky didn't let his mind dwell on the words. He'd heard them before, a dozen times. The words were the same; only the names changed. This wasn't the real memorial service. The true service would come later, days or weeks down the line, when the men who'd known the deceased finally felt ready to talk about them, to let them live again, if only in memory.
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Five
Bucky held his rifle tight as he and the rest of his squad advanced towards the facility. The Nazi guards and overseers were on their knees, their weapons laid on the ground in front of them, but into their faces were etched deep scowls, their gazes burning as their eyes glanced over the dark faces of the men from the 370th who'd made up a third of the assault team. Part of him hoped none of those Kraut sons of bitches were stupid enough to try anything. Part of him hoped that they were.
Captain Banks had command of the mission. When he was sure all resistance had been quelled, he approached Bucky, Wells and Dugan, who each led a team of men.
"The compound's secure. Signal the medics to come in."
Wells hurried off to carry out the command, and before long a flood of white uniforms came pouring in through the gate. Three doctors and ten nurses had always been enough for the SSR; now, Bucky suspected three times as many wouldn't have been enough.
He shadowed one of the doctors as the man wound his way through the camp with two of the nurses in tow. He tried to keep his focus on his surroundings, to not see the frail, emaciated, broken bodies around him, but they were the proverbial elephant in the room, and he found himself unable to look away.
They were living skeletons. Paper-thin skin draped tragically over bones so that every harsh angle stood out in painful detail. If he hadn't already known how many ribs a person had, he could've learnt it by counting the ribs visible on every body in the camp. Never before had he imagined that a human being could be so thin and still be alive. Steve was skinny, but not like this. Steve was skinny, but these people were starved.
Their clothes were mud-caked, shapeless rags, and their eyes followed him dully as he kept a protective watch over the medical staff who tried to assess and help those who were not too far gone. There were men, women and children in the camp, and sometimes it was hard to tell which were which.
He heard muted whispers from those strong enough to stand, and they began to crowd around the medics and the soldiers. Their voices whispered in German, and Bucky felt a flame of anger spark inside him. The prisoners were Germans; the Nazis had done this to their own people. Shipped them off to some work camp, where they would slave and starve until they died.
The first time he felt fingers pluck at his uniform, he jumped with alarm, and his hand drifted to his Colt in case it was being slipped from its holster. A group of prisoners crowded closer, their skeletal fingers reaching out towards him, brushing his arm, his shoulder, his chest, his back, their hands groping feebly at his jacket as they moved closer to embrace him with their bone-thin arms.
The stench of decaying, unwashed bodies assaulted him, a malevolent miasma that made his stomach heave. The stink of death and illness was a stark contrast to their faces; tears rolled down their sagging, grimy cheeks as they gazed at him, leaving pale tracks in the dirt. Cracked, leathery skin of fingers and hands brushed across his face, stroked his hair, as if they longed for the touch of something—anything—that was soft and warm and clean.
They asked for nothing, demanded no food, no help, no comfort beyond his presence. They mumbled sentences in German interspersed with infrequent English words; Thank you. Liberator. Angel. Saviour. They thanked him and blessed him even as their bodies continued to die. Nearby, Biggs had opened up his ration kit and was handing out all of its contents to people who barely had enough teeth left to chew, and still the people came to touch him, to touch Captain Banks, and Gusty, and Wells, a flock of dying creatures rallying to thank the men who'd finally put an end to their harrowing period of suffering.
Bucky had long since given up trying to stop his own tears; they came freely, and were brushed swiftly away by hands that hadn't seen anything as kind as tears since the first day of their imprisonment.
It was a long, emotionally exhausting day. The liberators gave away all of their food; the people of the camp needed it more. Some died even as they were freed, and were buried with full honours outside the chain-and-barbed-wire fence of the compound, so that in death they could experience the freedom they had been denied in life. Captain Banks rotated the men who were guarding the German camp overseers frequently, because the longer men stood with their weapons trained on the Nazis, the more often they came to him with their suggestions of executing them all.
Two hours after nightfall, a flock of Red Cross personnel arrived, escorted by a company of infantry from the British Third Army. Captain Banks ordered the men assigned to the SSR to pull out, and handed oversight of the liberation to the new arrivals.
They marched back to the SSR's camp, eight miles away. Their stomachs were empty, but none of them were hungry. Not a man spoke as they marched, and Nurse Klein didn't stop crying even after they got back to camp.
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Six
"Ceasefire!" Bucky called, as something white was waved frantically out of a small, broken-shuttered window. All around him, the guns fell silent.
He peered again over the irregular stone wall behind which he and his team were crouched. There was movement in the town; men stepped out from doorways, from behind buildings and abandoned cars, guns held aloft over their heads. Eight in total, they wore uniforms of the Italian Army, but their clothes were dusty, creased, and a couple were stained dark where men had bled or been bled on. Their faces were as dusty as their clothes, their eyes conveying harrowed expressions Bucky had seen on the faces of his own men, and in his small shaving mirror.
He felt momentarily sorry for them. Word was the Germans were withdrawing to behind the Apennines, leaving their Italian allies alone on the western side of the country. Word also had it a peace was being negotiated between the Italian government and the Allies. That soon, Italy would become a neutral party. It was a failing country occupied by multiple enemy forces, a battleground on which a war would be waged, its soldiers unsure of what they were still fighting for.
But right now, they were still the enemy.
Bucky pressed the transmit button on his radio. "Wells, tell them to throw down their weapons."
"THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!" Wells' voice called from further to the east of the town's periphery.
Bucky rolled his eyes, but the Italians obeyed, tossing their guns into a pile with a clatter that echoed down the empty streets. He couldn't remember the name of this town, but its name wasn't important. All that mattered was subduing the enemy force holding it.
"Franklin, you're with me," he said. "The rest of you, stay sharp."
He pushed himself to his feet and frog-leaped over the wall with Franklin right behind him. They both held their rifles tightly as they advanced, and a moment later, Wells and Davies appeared from behind their own cover.
The Italians stood still as the Americans approached. They seemed a bunch of twitchy fellas, their eyes darting over the ground, then up to the faces of their attackers, before darting back down again as if afraid to be seen looking. Where the town's civilians were, Bucky had no idea. Maybe they'd evacuated, or maybe they were holed up inside their homes, families clutching each other tightly under kitchen tables as they prayed and waited for the violence to pass.
Crack.
The quiet report of an SSR-01 being fired made Bucky jump. Two seconds later, he saw something fall from the top of a church tower. It hit the ground with a meaty thud, followed by the clatter of a dropped weapon. The gun was a sniper rifle, and the body was wearing the uniform of a German soldier.
A flame of anger ignited within him.
"These cowardly bastards are using our own tactics against us!" he said to Wells, before turning a scowl on the Italians. "Don't you know that's perfidy? Wells, ask them if they know that's perfidy."
"Do you know that's perfidy?" Wells asked the most senior officer amongst them.
The Italian capitano cringed. "Si, si. The Germans, they said they had to withdraw. They told us to stay here and draw the Americans out into the open. Please signore, it was not our idea."
Bucky lifted his radio again. "Good shooting, Tex. Wells, ask them when the Germans left."
"When did the Germans leave?" Wells asked the captain.
"Yesterday. They took most of our weapons and all of our vehicles. Also food, and medical supplies."
"What should we do with them, Sarge?" asked Franklin.
Bucky eyed them up. Now that they were no longer shooting at his team, the foreign soldiers looked normal. Kinda feeble, actually. One or two fidgeted nervously, their eyes darting from American face to American face. They weren't quite as composed as their German counterparts.
"We don't have room for prisoners," he said. "We'll execute them."
The Italian captain's face paled, and one of the others let out a whimper.
"But signore! It is against the Geneva Accord, which both our governments have signed!"
"He's right," Wells agreed. "It wouldn't be right to shoot these men."
"What's the alternative? That we take them back to camp and the colonel orders them shot anyway?"
"It's still wrong," said Wells. "And I'll have no part in it."
"Fine." Bucky turned his head, to call out the rest of the team. "Men, form a firing squad!"
The rest of the team trudged reluctantly out and formed a line with their rifles. Two of the Italians broke down in tears, and another began praying rapidly in Italian, his gaze cast to the sky.
"I hope your superiors learn of what you have done here," the Italian captain said. "And that you are punished for your crimes."
Bucky watched the foreign soldiers as they straightened up, preparing for death. Two were still crying. That meant he'd lost the bet.
"Hodge wins," Davies agreed, as if on cue. "Everybody owes him five bucks."
"Yes!" yelled Hodge, punching the air with his fist. "Hot damn, I finally won something!"
No doubt they'd be hearing about this for the rest of the war. Hodge sure liked to rub his victories—whether real or perceived—in other people's faces.
"Alright Gusty, cuff 'em," Bucky instructed.
The Italian captain looked incredulous. "You… you're not going to execute us?"
"Naw. We just wanted to see how many of you we could make cry. You and your men are going back to our camp for questioning, and then you'll be handed over to one of the British companies, to be sent to England as POWs."
Gusty oversaw the cuffing of the prisoners, then handed them over to the rest of the team. Bucky made Hodge take point, and set himself at the back of the column, so he wouldn't have to hear the private's gloating.
"That was a bad thing you did," Wells told him.
"It was your idea!"
"Yeah, but you went along with it. And you're supposed to be the responsible one."
Bucky's brows lowered into a frown. "If I'd known Hodge was gonna win, I would've put my foot down and said no."
This, he decided, was the last time he was gonna let Wells talk him into a bet.
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Seven
Bucky's eyes roved over the pages of his Army Editions book without truly seeing the words. He'd been trying to read Diversey for three days, but just couldn't get into the story. He didn't like the protagonist and the plot didn't much appeal, but he made a point of finishing every book he started, so he persevered. Let his eyes slide over the words which sank no further into his mind.
The tent flap flew open and in strode Wells. His face was covered with a layer of dust, except where trickles of sweat had made lighter tracks in his cheeks, and his olive drab uniform was decidedly greyer than it had been two days ago. His boots were caked with a thick layer of dried mud, and an unlit tobacco pipe was clenched between his teeth.
"So, you finally managed to win that thing off Dugan," Bucky said, sitting up with a grin.
Wells rolled his eyes. "Yeah. And he whined at me about it for the whole trip. Fuckin' cry-baby. I think it makes me look dignified. What do you think?" he asked, turning his head so Bucky could see him in profile.
"I think it makes you look like a jerk."
"Don't worry, I'll let him buy it back off me next week for three times what it's worth. But enough about Dugan; I saw the Kraut cars at the motor pool. I take it your mission was a success?"
Bucky nodded. He'd got back from his mission twenty-four hours ago, and had spent his time enjoying the relative peace and quiet of the camp.
"Yeah. I've no idea what Phillips wants with a couple of German vehicles, and I think I'd rather not know. That way, he can't involve me in his next crazy scheme. How about you? How was the supply drop?"
"Off-target, as usual." With a deep sigh, Wells sank down onto his bed beside Bucky's and shrugged off his haversack. His M1 was unceremoniously dumped on his pillow, along with his hard-won pipe. "Took us five hours in the pouring rain to load everything into the jeeps. Halfway back, we hit a swamp. Jeeps sinking everywhere, men up to their knees in mud and water, supplies floating away… it was hell. But I did manage to salvage these."
From his backpack, he pulled out a load of water-damaged envelopes tied together with a length of twine.
"Letters from civilisation," he explained. "They were in the largest crate. One of Dugan's men sorted through them by regiment, and these are ours."
Bucky's interest was immediately piqued. He leant over to look at the name on the first letter. Tried not to fidget, or snatch the whole pile from Wells' hands.
"Did I get one?"
"Dunno." Wells pulled out his knife and cut through the twine. "Let's see."
Bucky waited as his friend rifled through the pile. Though the envelopes were of uniform size and shape, they varied in thickness. Some were thin enough to contain only a single sheet of folded paper, while others clearly held several. He guessed the guys at the V-mail receiving office had printed multiple letters for some soldiers and just stuck them all in a single envelope, to save room.
"Ah, here you go." Wells held out a thick envelope. Bucky tore it open and pulled out the papers, his eyes catching sight of several different styles of handwriting. Mom and Dad, Janet, Mary-Ann, Charlie… there were two letters apiece from his family, but none from Steve. Inside his chest, his heart sank. Why hadn't his best friend written him?
Suddenly, his sinking heart lurched. Maybe something had happened to him! Maybe Steve couldn't write because he was hospitalised with two broken arms, or… or… He grabbed the letter from his folks, scanning it for any mention of his best friend.
"Shit," Wells swore quietly.
Bucky lifted his eyes, to chastise his friend for interrupting his frantic search, but the crestfallen expression on Wells' face stopped him before he could even open his mouth.
"What is it?"
Wells merely held up an envelope. On the front, it said, Corporal Kenneth Robbins. 107th Infantry.
"Shit," he agreed, as Wells ran a dirty hand through his dusty hair. "It must've been on its way here before the colonel finished his condolence letter."
"What should we do with it?"
"We'll send it back. With a note, explaining that we received it only recently. We got no right to open it, and we can't just throw it away."
Wells nodded and started digging through his bag for his pen and ink. He didn't have much luck, partially because he still had a hundred envelopes on his lap, partially because his hands were shaking.
"Here," Bucky said, taking the envelope from his hands. "I'll do it."
"My writing's neater than yours."
"And your hands are dirtier than mine," he pointed out. "Seriously, Wells, you only just got back. Go wash up and get changed. You look like you spent the last two days rolling in the mud."
"Alright." Wells relinquished his grip on his bag and set the rest of the envelopes down on his bed, ready for distribution. "You know, I can't wait till we get back to somewhere civilised, so that I can have a hot bath instead of a cold river, and wash my clothes with real soap, rather than whatever they're giving us now."
"I don't suppose you found another bottle of Scotch in those supply crates?"
Wells gave him a smile which didn't quite touch his blue eyes. "I wish I had. I could use a stiff drink right about now."
When Bucky was alone again, he sat with the letter in his hands, feeling the gentle weight of it settle against his fingers. Strange to think how a single envelope could hold the entirety of a person's hopes, fears and dreams. That something as complex as human emotion could be distilled via ink onto a plain piece of paper.
He glanced at the letters from his family, suddenly overcome by the need to read them, to reconnect with the people who'd been missing from his life for nearly three months.
Carefully, he slid the letters from home beneath his pillow, where they couldn't tempt him. There would be time for them later. Right now, he had one last duty to perform for Carrot.
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Eight
Dozens of unfamiliar faces glanced at Bucky as he walked through the extended camp. Two days ago, they'd met up with a battalion from the Eighth Army, to carry out a couple of combined operations. It was a chance to meet new people, play poker with unsuspecting soldiers, and catch up on much-needed info and gossip about the rest of the war and life outside the SSR's rather secretive existence.
For once, Bucky's belly wasn't complaining. He'd had a breakfast of bacon and baked beans on toast—real toasted bread, not that hardtack rubbish the Army had stolen from the Navy—and now all he wanted to do was lie down with a good book and relax. But Gusty and Franklin wanted to play poker, so he'd agreed to join them in finding a couple of saps to play against.
They left the huge mess tent and set out to an area on the outskirts of the camp where informal gambling sprang up like weeds from the ground. En route, they passed by their host's small USO tent, and found Wells staring forlornly at a poster.
"What's up, pal?" Bucky asked, clapping a hand on Wells' shoulder.
Wells pointed wordlessly at the poster. He looked like the kid who'd just been told he'd be getting no Christmas presents this year.
The poster was bright and garish, and had the painted image of a flame-haired woman in one corner. In huge letters, it said,'The USO is proud to present RITA HAYWORTH. Performing at Palermo, Sicily, on September 19th.'
"Oh," Bucky said, as understanding dawned. "September 19th? Wasn't that—"
"Yesterday," Wells nodded. Biting his lower lip, he was on the verge of tears. "I hate my life."
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Nine
Bucky was rocked gently awake to the quiet hum of a motor. He yawned and sat up, working the crick out of his neck, rolling his shoulders to loosen his stiff muscles. The car's headlights pierced the darkness of the outside world, but the view was one of a crumbling road encroached by wild vegetation.
"You're a terrible navigator," Wells accused.
Guilt stabbed its fingers into his gut. He reached down to his feet, picking up the map that had slid from his knee, trying to straighten it out and figure out exactly where they were. After a couple of seconds, he turned it the right way up.
"Sorry. You should'a woken me!"
Wells' face was all in shadow, the only source of illumination the headlights on the road behind them, but Bucky thought he saw a smile tug at his friend's lips.
"You seemed to need the sleep. Besides, whilst you were unconscious I consulted you about the matter of going AWOL, and you agreed it was a fine idea."
"So… where are we heading?"
"Genoa. It's on the coast. That means beaches. The city will be filled with exotic drinks and exotic women. They'll be sun-kissed. The dames, I mean, not the drinks."
"Sounds nice."
"I've thought it all through," Wells said, as he fixed his eyes on the dark road ahead. "We'll stay in Genoa for a month or two, live the ritzy life. When we get bored of that we'll stow away aboard a ship heading somewhere far and warm, some place that never even heard of the word 'war.' We'll jump ship at the first tropical paradise island we find, and spend our days farming on our coconut plantation. We'll make moonshine out of our coconut harvests, and be the envy of potato-peasants everywhere.
"Once we've cornered the market on coconut moonshine, we'll hail some passing merchant vessel and sell what we have for millions of dollars. We'll be rich. Richer than Stark. Then we'll come home when the war's over, and everyone will praise us as heroes for introducing them to coconut moonshine. And we'll live happily ever after."
Bucky smiled at the image of himself farming anything. "It's a fine plan."
The car turned off the main road and onto a narrow dirt track. Bucky was bounced and jostled as the vehicle humped its way over stones and dipped down into holes. He hoped Genoa's roads would be more comfortable.
When they reached a small, dark farmhouse, Wells pulled up beside it and switched off the engine as he grabbed his M1 and hopped out. The two other vehicles in their convoy joined them.
With a final yawn, Bucky grabbed his own rifle and opened the passenger door. His legs felt like jelly after their six-hour journey, and he kicked them out in turn, working feeling back into his numb feet.
"What do we do now, Sarge?" Hawkins asked. He and Franklin had joined Bucky and Wells. In the third vehicle, Hodge kept the engine running.
"Now, we wait."
To entertain themselves while they waited, they took it in turn peering into the blacked out windows of the farmhouse. Inside was old furniture, some of it covered by dust sheets. It seemed abandoned, but Bucky had learnt after meeting Steve Rogers that appearances could be deceiving.
They didn't have long to wait. Their nerves were on edge, and they heard the approaching men before they saw them. The newcomers were dressed as civilians, their weapons a mismatch of rifles and pistols and shotguns, no two the same. They stepped out from a field of tall crops, their guns held low, ready to be brought into play if they were needed.
Half a dozen paces apart, the two groups stopped and faced each other.
"We heard there's something of a demand for ex-Nazi vehicles around here," Bucky said.
The leader of the group stepped forward. His bushy moustache reminded Bucky of Sergeant Murphy, of the Screaming Eagles.
"We will put the automobiles to good use," the man replied in a lilting Italian accent.
"What exactly are you gonna be using them for?" asked Wells.
"If your superiors believed you needed to know that, signore, they would already have told you."
And that was the end of the conversation. Two of the men climbed into one of the cars, and three into the other. They set off on another dirt track and within a minute their headlights were out of sight.
Bucky watched them go, then signalled the team to get into the jeep. As soon as they were all aboard, Hodge reversed around, then drove up the torturous dirt track, back to the main road.
"Did they even say thanks?" Hodge asked, once they were back on a more solid surface.
"Nope," Franklin said gloomily.
"Hmph. They should'a been more grateful. It's not like they were capable of getting themselves a couple of Nazi cars, was it? Otherwise they would'a done it already."
"Keep your focus on the road, Hodge," Bucky warned. "These Italian roads are a mess."
"Fine, whatever. But somebody needs to direct me. Which way do I go?"
"Second star to the right and straight on till morning," Bucky grinned, as a childhood memory of Peter and Wendy came crashing back into his head.
Hodge's brow lowered into a perplexed frown. "Huh?"
"Just follow signs for Genoa," said Wells. "And don't stop going until you see the Med."
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Ten
From their elevated position in the central Alps, they'd watched the night sky over Como explode for hours. U.S. planes dodged German flak. The distant roar of artillery fire reached them only as a dull, barely audible rumble of thunder. Part of Bucky hated that he was reduced to the role of helpless observer, but part of him sure was glad he wasn't up there in one of those bombers, taking flak from AA guns.
In the early hours of the morning, the thunder stopped. Smoke clouds drifted up from the city, the horizon burned orange and red, but it would be another couple of days before the SSR would find out which side now held Como.
"That was some firework show," Wells said at last. He, like a half dozen other members of the 107th, was propped up in his sleeping roll outside the regiment's tent.
"I hope our boys took the city," said Franklin.
Bucky looked down at the orange glow of still-raging fires. "I hope there's a city left."
They watched in silence as the city burned. The bombers must'a hit munitions stores. That was the only explanation for how and why the fires raged so long.
Suddenly, a bright flash of white light seared itself across his vision as something went hurtling across the night sky. The after-image played out across his eyes, splitting the sky cleanly in two, over and over again. Excitement tingled inside his chest; he'd never seen a falling star before.
"Did anyone else see that?" he asked.
"Sure did," said Gusty. "Hope you made a wish, Sarge."
"I didn't," he said, his heart sinking. He'd been so excited to see his first shooting star that he'd completely forgotten you were supposed to wish on them. "What did you wish for, Gusty?"
"An end to the war, of course."
"I wished for an end to the war with us on the winning side," Mex added.
"Davies?"
"More productive chickens."
"That's so stupid," Franklin scoffed.
"Then what'd you wish for, Mr. Smartypants McWiseguy?" Davies shot back.
"An endless supply chain of coffee, of course. How are we gonna win this war if we run out of coffee? Mark my words, it won't be bombers or falling stars that'll get us home, it'll be good old fashioned American joe."
"Hodge," said Bucky, before the pair of Pfcs. could starts a Chickens vs. Coffee debate, "what'd you wish for?"
"Oh, err, nothing important." Hodge fidgeted in his blanket, clearly uncomfortable. Unfortunately for him, everyone else saw his discomfort.
"Don't be a sissy," Gusty judged harshly. "Davies shared with us his desire for more productive chickens, and Franklin told us of his wish for more caffeine. Now, fess up."
"Fine," Hodge grumbled. His face was a mask of defensive scowls, daring anybody to tell him his wish was stupid. "I wished that I'd get to be the one to put a bullet in Hitler's head."
"Why? Revenge for all those Jews he killed?"
"No. The guy who kills Hitler, he's gonna be famous. Rich. A hero. They'll make moving pictures about him. Probably build a statue of him. And my ol' mom would be real proud if they built a statue of me."
"At least that's not as stupid as chickens," Franklin smirked. "What about you, Sarge?" he asked of Wells.
"I wished on one star for another star."
"Rita Hayworth," everyone gathered said by rote.
"You're a creature of habit, Wells," Bucky grinned.
"Truer words were never spoken," Wells agreed. "What'd you wish for, Tex?"
"Nuthin'."
"Did you forget, like Barnes?" Gusty asked him.
"Naw, Ah don't need anything right now."
"You could'a wished for a million bucks!" Hodge complained. "Even if you don't want it, you could'a given it to us!"
"Ah'll wish for that next time, then," Tex grinned.
Once the excitement of the falling star had passed, they sat in silence whilst down below them Como burned.
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Eleven
The air smelt of smoke and blood and death. Crouched in the ruinous skeleton of a bombed-out house, Bucky longed for the good old days of assaulting HYDRA bunkers to the scent of pine. At the time, it had felt like rough work. Looking back, it had been a warm up.
"Where the hell are the 69th?" Hodge grumbled as he reloaded his M1.
Bucky didn't pay Hodge much attention. His focus was on the dirty, rubble-strewn street that he and two-dozen members of the 107th had been told to hold at all costs. The 69th were sweeping in from the east, pushing the Nazis before them. Phillips had hoped the Krauts would surrender what was left of Como without putting up much of a fight. So far, they hadn't surrendered even a stone.
Bodies littered the ground. Italians caught in the bombing. Germans who'd tried to hold their position. Members of the 107th who'd given their lives so that the rest of the team could establish a foothold in the bombed-out house. Bucky kept his eyes away from the bodies, so that he didn't see them, but he couldn't help but be aware of them. Both sides were fighting over a graveyard.
"They'll be here," he said, more to himself than to Hodge. Out on the street, he saw movement. Three Nazis tried to make for better cover. Bucky dropped the first. The second fell to Gusty's gun, and the third almost made it to the safety of an overturned wagon before a quiet crack! signalled a shot fired by Tex's SSR-01. The soldier was dead before he hit the street.
"Their timing is shit," Wells pointed out. "They were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. We're gonna be in trouble if the Krauts try for another push against us."
Bucky nodded. "We have our orders."
"And what if the 69th are all dead?" Hawkins asked. His young face was lined with two days' worth of grime, and his eyes held a harrowed look that Bucky was seeing more and more as the days passed by.
He looked back to the street, his own eyes weary, gritty with tiredness. "We have our orders. We hold this position, for as long as it takes."
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Twelve
A gunshot sounded like a clap of thunder. It tore men from their sleep and set hearts racing. Bucky's eyes were open even before his mind was awake, and he joined the rest of the regiment stumbling out of their beds as they reached for their uniforms and weapons.
His thoughts finally caught up with his body. How could the camp be under attack? They were nestled safely in the Alps, far from the front line, and the sentries ought to be keeping a close watch.
Grabbing his M1, he stepped out of the tent and into bedlam. Soldiers were milling in various states of dress, each of them carrying his gun. Officers were calling out instructions, calling out for sitreps, trying to organise men into defensive positions against an enemy they couldn't see or hear.
There was no second shot. Bucky stayed closed to the 107th's tent as he waited for orders. Gusty and Wells waited with him, whilst inside the tent the rest of the men sat on their bunks with their rifles across their knees, each of them a bundle of pent-up nervousness.
Finally, an order came. Stand down. False alarm.
The order was passed from officer to officer until it reached the 107th's tent. False alarm? But who had fired the shot, and why? Had the men in the foxholes been jumpy? Fired at shadows, or wildlife? And where were the colonels? Why weren't Phillips or Hawkswell here to tell the troops to go back to their beds?
"I'm gonna find out what's happened," Bucky said. "I'll be back shortly. Tell the men they can go back to sleep."
As he made his way through the camp, the grumbles of exhausted enlisted men reached his ears. They were gonna have sharp words with the jerk who'd woken them, some suggested. Others were stripping off for bed even before they'd re-entered their regimental tents.
It took ten minutes to find the colonels, and when he did, he couldn't get near. They were just outside the 9th's tent, and a crowd of men was clustered around them. Agent Carter was there, as well as Howard Stark. Their gazes were downcast as they stared at something on the ground. On the outskirts of the group, Bucky spotted a familiar figure standing on his tiptoes to see over the crowd.
"What's happening, Dugan?" he asked.
The big man lowered his feet and pulled off his hat, holding it with both hands against his chest. With a sad shake of his head, he replied with only two words.
"Private Denning."
Dugan left, and Bucky took his place. Stood on his tiptoes. Peered over the crowd. Just inside the 9th's tent, two medics were zipping up a body bag. His blood ran cold when his eyes fell on the face of the dead young man; it was bloody, one side ruined by something that had gone through his temple at speed. Nearby on the groundsheet was a pistol, and the gun's barrel and grip were also flecked with blood.
Private Denning.
Bucky had seen the young private from time to time in the mess hall. He never smiled. Never laughed. Rarely spoke, except to answer questions. His eyes saw nothing closer than a thousand yards, but unlike Hawkins and Gusty and the rest of the 107th's who'd been there and come through the emotional turmoil, Private Denning's eyes had never lost that stare.
The fighting in Africa had been hard, and the 9th had been in the thick of it, or so Bucky had heard. En route to England for much-needed R&R, their ship had been torpedoed, almost all hands lost. Stranded in France, they'd lived on the edge of their nerves until the SSR had arrived and swallowed them up. Now they'd been thrust back into combat, and Bucky could only imagine how lost and distraught Private Denning must have felt over everything he'd gone through.
In silence, he left the tent. How long would it be until the rest of the men started to stare like Denning? To sit in silence while eating their meals, unable to find even a single smile for themselves or each other?
He didn't want to think about the men in the 107th gettin' desperate enough to put a gun to their own heads, but he had to face facts; the Nazis and their allies were not the only enemies in this war. Some enemies could not be fought with guns and tanks and bombs. Some could not even be seen. They lurked inside, germinating in the dark like those mushroom spores of Davies'. How could Bucky possibly protect the men he knew and cared about from the enemies within their own minds?
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Thirteen
They saw the wings before they saw the body. One had been torn off during the violent descent, the other blasted off by flak. The first one was in pieces scattered over a wide swath of ground, leading the way to the fuselage like a breadcrumb trail through the forest.
Bucky halted, one fist raised, as his eyes picked up the burned wreckage of the plane. For long moments, he waited, heart a steady staccato in his chest as he searched for signs of movement. Signs of life. There were none.
"Gusty," Bucky said, without taking his eyes off the fuselage. "You'll organise grave detail. Hodge, keep an eye on the medics. Leave tags on until everyone is accounted for. And let's try to do this as quick as we can; I don't wanna be here at nightfall. No doubt the Krauts saw the plane go down, too."
The men scrambled to obey. It had been a tough hike across rough terrain, and they'd gone without knowing precisely where the B-17 had crash-landed after the aerial battle over Como. Hawkswell had already told them not to expect any survivors, but Bucky liked to hope for the best.
He set Davies and Hawkins to keep watch, and joined the rest of the team at the ruined fuselage. The once-green exterior of the plane was now grey and black with char; fuel tank must've exploded. How else could metal burn so hotly? The paint had peeled away entirely and only two small windows were unbroken. As he dug through the still-warm carcass, he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. The floor was hard to walk on, the seats and cargo nets hanging at odd angles. When he realised the plane was upside down, it made more sense.
"Hold!" Hawkins called from outside the fuselage, his voice tense. Bucky grabbed his M1 and joined him. A man was standing nearby, both hands held up to show he was unarmed. His face was smeared liberally with black soot, his eyes disbelieving as he looked at the men swarming over the downed plane. He wore the flight suit of a U.S. bomber crew, and tears spilled unchecked down his dirty cheeks.
"Who are you?" Bucky asked, though he managed to keep the defensive bite out of his voice.
"Captain Short, USAF," the man replied by rote.
"I'm Sergeant Barnes, 107th Infantry. When your plane went down, we were sent to recover anybody who survived," Bucky told him. "Are you alone?"
The captain shook his head. "Our navigator, Lieutenant Humphrey, he made it, too. He's in a bad way. You gotta help him!"
"Doctor Peacock!" Bucky shouted. The man appeared from the fuselage. "We've got a wounded crewman nearby." Turning back to Short, he said, "Take us to him."
Captain Short turned and led them away from the fuselage. As he strode along, slowly regaining some of his composure, he gave them a report of what had happened. Bucky didn't need the report, but he guessed it was something the man felt he had to give. A thread of normalcy after the horror of being shot down. The lifeline he needed to keep him going.
"We'd just completed our bombing run when we took heavy flak. I was in the nose cone—I'm the bombardier—and I tried to direct the pilot out of the worst of it, but it was everywhere. It was like the sky itself was exploding all around us. When the plane began to dive, I managed to drag myself out of the cone along the crawlway, and when I got to the cockpit I found the pilot dead. Our co-pilot was injured, but he managed to pull us out of the dive. That crazy sonofabitch somehow got us through the flak, but we'd taken too much damage. Engines two and four were ruined. Engine three wasn't doing too good, either.
"Everything was so dark, we couldn't see a damn thing. I knew the co-pilot was trying to put us down somewhere before he lost consciousness, but I don't think he was really aware of what he was doing, or where we were going. We took more flak, not bad, but bad enough to add to the damage we'd already taken. Don't know how the wing started to come apart, but it did. By that time he'd brought us in low… too low. We hit something. Felt like a mountain. Next thing I knew, the plane was spinning out of control and the ground was rising up to meet us. We lost the tail gunner on the way down; he went out one of the holes where the wings had been."
The man paused, his sooty face creasing into a mask of pain.
"What about the fire?" Bucky asked, to keep his mind active.
"We started burning during the fall. How the co-pilot got us down in mostly one piece I'll never know, but as soon as we hit I pulled out as many men as I could and dragged them clear. The co-pilot was killed on impact… he gave his last breath making sure the rest of us had a chance. Most of the men were dead. Humphrey was alive, and our radio operator, Croft, he was, too. But Croft's injuries were too severe, he was too badly burned. He went into shock and I couldn't help him.
"I managed to drag Humphrey away from the wreckage, and we holed up in a small cave I found. That was the day before yesterday, and he's been going slowly downhill since."
"What are the nature of his injuries?" Doctor Peacock spoke up. He was puffing and panting as he kept pace with the soldiers, his large aid kit strapped to his back. One of the nurses—Nurse Arnold, Bucky thought—followed mutely behind.
"You can see for yourself," said Captain Short. He stopped and gestured to a triangular-shaped hole in a layer of bedrock that had been tilted on a sharp diagonal. Dr. Peacock and Nurse Arnold hurried forward, and Bucky followed them.
A second man was slumped against the cave wall, his face grey, his flight suit singed and bloodstained. Bucky's stomach turned when he saw the jagged metal spike protruding from the man's torso.
"I didn't wanna take the shrapnel out," Short explained. "The wound bled a lot, but the metal seemed to stem the worst of it."
Doc Peacock worked quickly. He crouched down beside the fallen man, one hand on his uninjured shoulder, squeezing gently and repeating the man's name until Humphrey's eyes flickered open.
"Wha'?" the lieutenant asked.
Captain Short knelt down beside him. "Lieutenant, we're gonna make it," he said, his voice cracking as the words came out. "These men are from the army. They came to find us. To bring us home."
It was hard to tell what colour Humphrey's eyes were in the darkness of the cave, but those eyes widened, and he reached out with his good arm to grab the lapel of Dr. Peacock's olive drab medical jacket. Bucky tightened his grip on his rifle, but when the lieutenant didn't make any violent gesture, he relaxed.
"Como," Humphrey gasped in a raw, hoarse voice. "Did we take it? Was it worth it?"
Captain Short looked up to Bucky, the same question on his face.
"We took it," Bucky confirmed. "Not easily, but we took it. It was worth it."
The injured man let go of Dr. Peacock, and a small, grim smile planted itself on his lips. "I'm glad. Captain, will you tell my wife—"
"You can tell her yourself," Short interrupted. The scene was so reminiscent of Bucky's last moments with Carrot that it made his heart ache inside his chest. "You can patch him up, right, Doc?"
Dr. Peacock had not been idle during the exchange. His had his stethoscope out and was listening to the noises coming from the lieutenant's chest. He lowered the scope, and stood.
"We'll give the two of you a moment alone," he said sadly. And then, to Humphrey, "I'm sorry."
Bucky and Nurse Arnold followed Dr. Peacock out of the cave. They stopped a short distance away, far enough that they couldn't overhear whatever Lieutenant Humphrey wanted Captain Short to tell his wife.
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Fourteen
Bucky hauled himself out of his mud-trap of a foxhole, and his replacement climbed in. Water poured liberally down his waterproof poncho, washing down over his boots, clearing away some of the cloying mud caked there. He held his rifle close to his body, trying his best to keep it out of the rain. Six hours in a waterlogged foxhole, and he wasn't sure his weapon even worked anymore.
The rain persisted in a heavy patter as he made his way downhill to where the bulk of the company were resting up. The hard ground made camping difficult. Here and there, a few pup tents had been erected, but mostly it was too difficult to drive pegs for guy lines into the bare, rocky ground.
Sparse stands of trees were their roof for the night. He stumbled along, bone-cold and bone-weary, glancing at the faces peeping out from over damp blankets as men tried to find their way to sleep. His mind felt as slow and sluggish as the muscles of his legs, and his eyes were gritty with exhaustion. The rain hadn't stopped in three days, and in the Alps, it fell cold.
At last he located the stand of trees where the 107th were taking shelter, and spotted a few familiar faces amongst them. They were almost as damp and dirty as he. Wearily he trudged, water trickling down his back. His boots were so sodden that his feet were numb. If he still had toes, he couldn't feel them, which was almost a relief. His boots had been rubbing so badly over the past couple of days that he'd had to go to the hospital every morning to have his burst blisters dressed.
His comrades were squashed together in long rows of men. The ground, too hard for pegs, was their bare mattress, and they'd pulled their sleeping rolls over themselves to trap heat, and covered them with ponchos to provide meagre, barely-effective protection from the rain.
Bucky saw a larger mound and made his way instinctively towards it. Biggs was curled up as much as his huge body would allow, and had his face tucked down into his blanket. Behind him, Wells was nestled in his own blankets, and there was just enough space between them for another body.
He pulled off his waterproof poncho and grabbed his sleeping roll from his haversack. Quickly, he dumped his bag, crawled beneath the bedrolls of Biggs and Wells, pulled his own roll into the line of overlapping blankets which covered the men, and then added his poncho over the top. Still damp, he placed his M1 behind him, then shuffled backwards a little, closer to the mountain of Biggs. Wells stirred from sleep and opened tired-looking eyes only for long enough to check who'd just crawled into the line, then let his lids fall back down with a heavy sigh.
Bucky shivered, a fast, jaw-chattering shiver like the kind he used to get as a kid after spending a day playing in the snow and slush on the streets of Brooklyn. The warmth from Biggs' back was stealing over him, but slowly. Though the rain no longer touched him, apart from an occasional drip, his damp clothes chilled him, and his shaking kept him from sleep. Be glad you're not here, Steve, he thought to his absent friend.
To try and speed up the warming process, he shuffled further back, so that he was right up against Biggs; a dangerous place to be, if the big man rolled. A moment later, Wells shuffled closer too, and finally Bucky found enough warmth to stop shivering. He sank into an uneasy, dream-filled sleep of being back home in front of a crackling fire.
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Fifteen
"I wish you wouldn't grin like that," Franklin sulked at Gusty. Bucky glanced up from his book—A Tale of Two Cities—and saw the stupid grin on Gusty's face. That grin could mean only one thing: he'd just seen Audrey. "It fills me with regret over the girl I should'a snapped up back home before being shipped out."
Gusty sank onto his bed, completely unapologetic about his grin. "So why didn't you?"
"She had a deal-breaker."
The grin morphed into a puzzled frown. "Deal breaker?"
"Yeah, you know. A flaw so bad or annoying that it completely broke the deal?" When Gusty didn't nod along, Franklin looked around the rest of the men for backup. "C'mon guys, you know what I'm talking about, right? Like, this dame, she had a lazy left eye. Never could figure out what she was looking at. It freaked me out. Of course, at the time, I thought I'd get over here and find myself knee deep in beautiful European girls, so it didn't matter. If I'd known I'd only be knee deep in mud, I might'a overlooked the lazy eye. It's not that big a deal if the lights are out, I guess."
"You're a true gentleman, Franklin," Gusty scoffed.
"Don't pretend to be all high and mighty, Gusty. I bet if Nurse Klein had some glaring flaw, you wouldn't look twice at her. For example, what if she had a huge, hairy mole on the side of her nose, or halitosis? Or… what if she was Jewish?"
"I'd love her just as much," the corporal said stiffly.
Franklin gave up on Gusty and turned his focus to the men resting up in their beds. Most had books or were writing letters, but Franklin's amusing complaint now had their attention.
"C'mon, there must be something that puts the rest of you right off a dame."
"Sure," Mex shrugged. "A penchant for cannibalism would put me off a dame."
"Hairy knuckles," said Hodge. He gave an involuntary shudder. "God, just the thought of it creeps me out."
"Bad teeth," said Wells. "Nothing kills the mood like a beautiful dame who opens her mouth and shows stained, crooked teeth."
"What about deal-makers?" Bucky spoke up. For him, it was confidence. He thought he might not even mind a dame with hairy knuckles or a lazy eye, as long as she was confident about it.
"Easy," said Wells. "Sense of humour. If a dame laughs at my jokes, I know I'm onto a winner."
"Pins that go on forever," Franklin said, rubbing his hands together.
"Rouged lips," Hodge grinned. "Drives me wild."
"You guys are shallow," Gusty scoffed.
"It's called 'having standards'" Franklin countered.
"No, it's called 'being shallow.' I hope you all fall in love with hairy, lazy-eyed, buck-teethed dames with amazing personalities, then you can eat your own words."
Bucky grinned as he imagined those wedding photos. Hodge's wife, her knuckles hairier than her husband's. Wells' wife, her teeth like broken grey stones in her mouth. Franklin's wife, with one—or even both—eyes lazy. And for the first time since crossing into Italy, he laughed out loud.